1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information recording medium such as an optical disk of a high recording density type, which is capable of recording information such as video information, audio information and the like at a high density, and which is represented by a DVD (Digital Video or Versatile Disk). The present invention also relates to a recording apparatus for recording the information onto the information recording medium, and a reproducing apparatus for reproducing the information from the information recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a so-called LD (Laser Disk) and a so-called CD (Compact Disk) are generalized as optical disks, on which information such as video information, audio information and the like is recorded.
On the LD or the like, the video information and the audio information are recorded together with time information indicating a time at which each information is to be reproduced with respect to a reproduction start position, which each LD or the like has, as a standard position. Thus, other than a general normal reproduction to reproduce the recorded information in the order of recording, various special reproductions are possible, such as a reproduction to extract and listen to an only desirable music out of a plurality of recorded musics, a reproduction to listen to the recorded musics in a random order and so on, in case of the CD, for example.
In the application of video CD to a karoke device, the text information (character information) relating to the recorded video information is recorded on the video CD, and the text information is displayed on a monitor to notify a user of the contents of the recorded video information and/or related information. In the case of the video CD, a portion on the disc is allotted to text information recording area in which the text information is recorded. The text information to be recorded is comprised of plural independent files each corresponding to a country for which the text is described (i.e., the files are prepared for each language), and each file includes a text relating to the whole contents of the disc and a plurality of texts relating to respective pieces of the recorded video information. Each text is applied with an identification number of itself.
However, according to the recording method of the text information described above, since the text information are simply recorded successively, it is difficult to rapidly recognize the recording position of a certain text information which is desired to be displayed. Therefore, it is required to check the contents of every text information one after another to find out the target text in a time-consuming manner.
In addition, since the text itself can be described only for the largest unit of the video information recorded on the disc, it is impossible to describe the text for further departmentalized information units. For example, in the case of the video CD on which plural stories are recorded, it is not possible to describe a text for each chapter and/or scene of each story, although it is possible to describe a text for each story.